When the ball drops in Times Square tonight in New York City, revelers will scream “Happy New Year,” kiss the girl (or guy) next to them, blow horns, and prepare for the traditional drop of a massive “tidal wave” of 3,000 pounds of confetti as it’s released from the rooftops of eight surrounding buildings at the stroke of midnight.
An additional 2,000 pounds of red, white, and blue confetti will be released a few minutes later as America officially celebrates its 250th anniversary.
While the one million revelers are drinking and celebrating, a massive deployment of police, fire, and emergency services will be nervously watching.
There will be specialized teams, including thousands of uniformed and plainclothes officers, along with units such as an Emergency Service Unit (ESU) and heavy weapons teams; K-9 units and Bomb Squad personnel; and harbor and aviation (helicopters) teams.
Authorities are taking extra precautions this year. For the first time, the NYPD is implementing secondary security checks that mobile teams inside the spectator “pens” perform to detect suspicious items or activity. A fleet of drones and helicopters will provide real-time coverage. Drones are specifically tasked with monitoring the crowd and identifying unauthorized aerial devices.
The operation is managed via a Joint Operational Center involving city, state, and federal partners to monitor for “lone wolf” or small-cell threats.
All of this is necessary because the threat of Islamic terrorism is ratcheted up thanks to recent history and the growing strength of actors like the Islamic State.
Around the world, cities are taking similar precautions as New York City to ring in the new year.
Paris has scrapped its flagship Champs-Élysées concert. Sydney’s Bondi Beach event was called off after two Islamists massacred Jewish families celebrating Hanukkah earlier this month. Towns and cities across Germany have either ramped up security or placed restrictions on celebrations. Some American cities have relocated events, while Tokyo has shelved its popular Shibuya countdown. The pattern is clear: public authorities are increasingly judging that the risk of terrorism is too great for mass celebrations to go ahead.
“This is not just risk management — it is a surrender of space,” writes Dr. Limor Simhony Philpott, a writer and researcher focusing on antisemitism, extremism, and defense.
“Terrorism, she continues, “traditionally aims to attack not merely bodies, but the feeling of safety within open societies.”
We’ve lived with this evil for more than 50 years. When Islamists first began to hijack passenger jets in the 1970s, our sense of normalcy was shattered. In 2015, when terrorists attacked the offices of the satirical French magazine Charlie Hebdo because they sponsored a contest to mock the prophet, there was recognition that not just our spaces that were under attack, but also our values and ideals, like freedom of expression, as well as everything else we hold dear, were threatened by this nihilistic madness.
The most troubling development may be that terrorism is now achieving its strategic aim without even needing to strike. By forcing cities to preemptively cancel celebrations, extremists have, in effect, imposed fear on public life. The act of anticipation has become their tool of coercion.
This anticipatory policing also places an enormous burden on already-strained security forces. Massive deployments such as the 2,500-officer operation in Sydney this year, alongside harsher security checks and barriers, indicate just how resource-intensive the new normal has become.
Policing a single night of celebration now requires counter-terror units, armed response teams, drones, CCTV monitoring, road closures, overtime pay and military back-up. This year, the cost and logistics involved in terrorism-level security have already led to a cancellation of a Christmas market in Germany — traditionally a cornerstone of national culture. There’s a simple arithmetic at play here: it takes a small number of actors to drag vast public machinery into a defensive posture.
The saddest part of all? There’s no “winning.” If stopping terrorism takes the expenditure of an enormous amount of resources and energy and will continue to do so, the terrorists have already won. Their way of life will not be affected. They don’t mind being oppressed as long as it’s in the name of their god. They’re used to being targets of extremists, or at least, people who are more extreme than they are.
Because we’re “civilized,” we can’t turn the Arabian desert and other benighted corners of the world into a sea of green glass. My worry is that someday, the terrorists will get hold of the ultimate means to punish those who insult the prophet, and we’ll end up being forced to do it anyway.
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